Story by Lydia Earhart | Photos by Dallas Goins and submitted by Danny Fogger
Lauren Tigges is definitely a daddy’s girl. Usually when Tigges walks into a room, her father, Danny Fogger, always has a close eye on her. Tigges will give a smile back to the man she calls “her best friend and the most important person in her life.” “To say that Lauren and I have a tight bond is just putting it lightly,” Fogger said. “She’s always been daddy’s baby, and daddy has always liked that.” Tigges was involved in a single-car accident April 22 that left her fighting, first for her life and then to keep her arms. To document her journey, Fogger turned to his Facebook for “Team Lauren” updates. In sharing his daughter’s journey and fight, their bond has strengthened through the toughest moments. In an exclusive interview with CityLife, Tigges agreed to share her story ... with her dad by her side.
THAT MORNING
For Tigges, April 22 started off like a regular day. She mopped her house while singing out loud to her music and then left to meet up with her mother to eat lunch in Blanchard.
Driving down Blanchard Furrh Road, her passenger tires unexpectedly hit a patch of soft dirt. Tigges over-corrected the steering wheel, causing the car to roll five times before landing upside down off the road.
“I had on my seat belt – I always wear my seat belt,” Tigges said. “And I just remember driving one minute, and then the next minute, I remember just swirling over and over again and screaming. I was conscious through the whole thing. The car flew 7 feet in the air and flipped five times, and it landed upside down so I was pinned in there, and I was held in by my seat belt.”
Tigges said the windshield and car door came off, and the car’s engine flew out across the yard.
“I mean, it was bad. It was really mashed up,” Tigges said. “I was just terrified because I could see the blood everywhere, and I was just hoping and waiting for someone to get there and help me. I was hoping someone had seen [the accident] because I obviously couldn’t call for help.”
Fogger said a passer-by saw the car and called 911. An off-duty fireman pulled Tigges from the car. It took about eight minutes for the EMS to arrive at the scene.
“I just remember waking up and looking at my arms because I knew they were broken bad because they were just there,” Tigges said. “I guess I was in shock because I remember everything happening. I remember screaming, I remember the guy pulling me out, but I don’t remember the pain. It’s a good thing.”
Tigges’ mother called Fogger, executive director of the Strand Theatre, and alerted him that Tigges was involved in a car accident.
“I didn’t obey the speed laws on my way over there,” Fogger said. “So it didn’t take me long to get there.”
Fogger said he was relieved to learn that Tigges was taken to LSU Hospital in Shreveport. “I am a firm believer in their trauma unit over there. I did 25 years of law enforcement,
and I was a homicide investigator for 21 of those years, and I had the opportunity to be in their ER trauma room on more than one occasion doing my job, and I have just been over there and witnessed a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff,” Fogger said.
Soon the ambulance arrived at LSU with Tigges, and Fogger had his first glimpse of his daughter.
“They brought her out of the ambulance, and she was screaming, and there was blood everywhere and it was just – it was hard. Sickening! It was hard because that is my baby,” Fogger said. “When I saw the blood, I thought, ‘Oh, she is fixing to die.’” Medical teams from LSU wheeled Tigges into the operating room while her family began to wait. It wasn’t until 12 hours later that Fogger was allowed to see Tigges.
After assessing her injuries, the medical team at LSU found the extent of Tigges’ injuries were limited only to her arms. Tigges was moved into the surgical intensive care unit and put into a medically induced coma and placed on a ventilator.
“It was harder for me to see her like that than it was to see all the blood and her screaming because at least I knew she was alive,” Fogger said. “I never felt as helpless in my life as I did when I came in and saw her laid out there like that with the ventilator on her and her arms just – they had them wrapped up. We really couldn’t see any of her injuries. I’m a pretty strong guy, but I lost it back there that day, and when I did, of course everyone else who was back there did, too.
“I knew that it was going to take some divine intervention for Lauren to make it through this.”
PICKING ‘TEAMLAUREN ’
Fogger was born and raised in Shreveport and spent about 25 years in law enforcement before changing jobs to work at the Strand.
As a person of Fogger’s stature, he is well-known in the community. “When word got out about what had happened, my phone literally just blew up,” Fogger said. “I mean it was constantly vibrating or buzzing. It was like by the hundreds and I’m not exaggerating. I couldn’t just use my phone, it was going off so much. I finally just turned it off, and a friend of mine said, ‘Don’t you have a Facebook?’” As recommended by a friend, Fogger soon assembled his Facebook to reflect Tigges’ journey, starting updates called “Team Lauren.”
“By that point, we’re needing blood donated, and I said OK, I understand that, so I’m just going to go through Facebook,” Fogger said. “I did a little blurb saying that my daughter Lauren was involved in this tragic wreck, and we need prayer, we need blood, we need this and that, and I’m going to give you updates twice a day.”
The response Fogger received was nothing short of a community willing to lend any kind of support possible.
“I was knowing that I had a lot of praying people following me, and I would put specific things to pray for, and they knew that she was going to have surgery on her left arm and would be in there three hours and [what] the purpose of this surgery [was].”
Then the support on Facebook reached another level. Fogger, being so associated with the Strand, had made many east to west coast friends. Soon “Please pray for Danny Fogger’s daughter, Lauren Fogger Tigges in Shreveport, La.,” was scrolling through the middle of Times Square in New York City.
Fogger and Tigges also got support from his friend in a Unitarian seminary. “One hundred and seventy-two Unitarian priests had a conference call prayer from around the world praying for Lauren,” Fogger said. “I had minister in Hawaii who I didn’t know who is a friend of a friend kind of deal, and he’s got his congregation praying for Lauren. People were on the West Coast who I didn’t know around Napa Valley, holding hands and circled up praying in the grapevines.
“It was wild. I have not personally ever experienced anything like that.” Tigges said she appreciated the support throughout the country. “I could feel it in my body,” Tigges said. “I was amazed and grateful.” But the support didn’t stop there. Boomtown Casino (where Tigges works), the Strand and even law enforcement all rallied support for blood donations.
“We had people just going to blood centers just to give her credit for it,” Fogger said.
“With all of that, we believe that about 500 units of blood were donated in Lauren’s name. While she did use a lot of blood, she didn’t lose nearly that.”
“That right there in itself is why I believe that Lauren’s tragedy has helped someone else because someone can use that blood other than her.”
BORN TO FIGHT
At the beginning of her journey, Tigges was told she might have to give up her arms.
Tigges and her father could not accept that.
After being hired on at LSU, Dr. Marjorie Chelly became Tigges’ plastic surgeon. Chelly worked with the orthopedic doctors and also did some vascular work on Tigges.
“We had a lot of serious conversations with [Chelly] and said do whatever it takes so that Lauren does not lose her arms. And she said, ‘You know, there is not much there to work with,’” Fogger said.
Of the three main veins in the arms, Tigges’ doctors were looking at one stripped and two crushed veins.
“They wound up having to take one out. They said they are just trying to amputate it just below the elbow, and we just kept saying, ‘No, we are not giving up on this,’” Fogger said. “Just kept on praying.”
Struggling to keep blood circulating down to her hand, the doctors at LSU tried alternate matters and tried “leech therapy.” This kind of therapy was used back in the medieval times with the hopes that leeches would repair tiny veins or arteries.
The hospital had to get permission to use the leeches.
Once approved, 42 leeches arrived and they had high hopes for Tigges.
“Aqua team Lauren gave a valiant effort, but they weren’t successful,” Fogger said. Fogger said that he was impressed with the level of work Chelly took on to save Tigges’ arms.
“Chelly went way beyond the call of duty in my opinion, and she chased this worldrenowned surgeon down from Parkland Hospital, Dr. [Jeffrey] Janis,” Fogger said. “He said that we will only take Lauren’s case if we know that we can help her.”
For two or three days, they took tests and photos to send to Janis’ team at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, and soon they were on the way to Texas.
The first thing Tigges heard when they opened the ambulance door was “Welcome to Texas!” by her father.
“It was euphoric. It felt like everything was going to be OK,” Tigges said. “At first I was really scared, but then I was just really determined that I was going to keep my arms. I was determined that it was going to happen. And I believed it every day that I was going to keep them and they were going to save them.”
Surgery was scheduled the next day.
Doctors planned on “hand to groin” surgery, which is used to help stimulate tissue and move blood through her arms.
Tigges’ hand was sewn to her groin for a month.
After eight days at Parkland, Tigges was sent back to LSU, and one month later, they severed her hand from her groin.
“It was about 50 percent successful,” Fogger said. “There was enough to wrap and help heal that bone.”
For a couple more weeks, Tigges was transferred back and forth to LSU and Promise Hospital in Bossier City to assist with her physical therapy. Fogger said with every session, she improves a little bit.
Tigges did exercises with her hands and practiced writing.
“I love you daddy was the first thing that you wrote,” Fogger said to Tigges.
From April 22 to Sept. 10, Tigges has undergone about 25 surgeries.
“I was just very determined, and I believed that you know with every one who loved me and God and just having the right attitude and just believing that you could do something,” Tigges said.
OUT OF THE FIRE
Tigges achieved her biggest goal when she returned to work at Boomtown Casino, as a guest experience specialist Aug. 13. She began writing in her same handwriting and typing just like she used to.
“They call me their rock star at work.
They made [rock out for Lauren bracelets] to raise money for a medical fund for me at work,” Tigges said.
At that time, Tigges was still catching rides to and from work and therapy until one day she said she knew she was ready to get behind the wheel again.
“I broke into a cold sweat,” Fogger said.
“She said, ‘Dad, I’m ready for you to look for [a car for me].’ “It just scared me. I had a flashback of all of this. And the mind is a wondrous thing. I could just see Lauren laying there with that ventilator, her face and her throat and her car.”
Fogger said he went through so many emotions.
“I just thought, ‘Oh, God, I’m not ready for her to drive, and I’m not sure that she can drive.’ And it was just the fear of all this happening again.”
After confirming that Tigges could drive, Fogger found Tigges a red Nissan Altima, and he made sure it had a high safety rating.
“When she pulled out from Orr Nissan and was right behind me and I looked in my mirror, I thought, ‘I am not ready for this; please be careful.’ That was really the first time that she was behind the wheel of a vehicle that I couldn’t control anymore,” Fogger said.
“We turned down Benton Road, and she is smiling and I’m smiling on the outside but weeping on the inside. But she did fine.”
Tigges said she has always loved to drive but now takes it more seriously.
“I do get flashbacks every now and then of the rolling car,” Tigges said.
“Just out of nowhere, it will hit me, but now I don’t fiddle with anything. I used to with CDs and all of that and dig in my purse, but now I keep my CDs and purse in the back seat, and my phone is in my purse behind the driver’s seat, and I don’t answer it for anything. I’m just very, very focused on the road more so than I have ever been.”
Tigges said she hopes to inspire those involved in similar situations.
“Ever since I was little that is the thing that I wanted to do most, was inspire people, and I never knew that this is the way that I did or could. I can’t say that I would change that,” Tigges said.
Tigges was thankful that her dad stayed with her through this tough journey.
“We are religious people,” Fogger said.
“I know that the only reason that Lauren is alive is because God saved her and because she was wearing her seat belt because the person that taught her how to drive always said, ‘It doesn’t matter how busy you are or how slow you are or how fast of a rush you are in, you always wear your seat belt.’” Fogger said he would have made the ultimate sacrifice for Tigges if needed.
“You know when it was my kid and I found out they are fixing to cut both her arms off, I said wait a minute, you can do all kind of things medically, can you take my arms? And her mom was doing the same thing,” Fogger said. “The doctor patted me on the back and said, ‘Well, Danny, we are working on that, but we are not quite there.’ “When it’s your kid, you give the ultimate, which is your life.”